May and June are very busy months for Researchers in Education.  Projects are wrapping up for end-of-school-year reporting, new projects are being proposed/designed for the upcoming school year and networks across Ontario hold conferences and events. Two events that you should know about are the Association of Educational Researchers of Ontario’s (AERO)  Spring Conference and the Ontario Chapter of the Canadian Evaluation Society’s (CES) Essential Skills Series.

 Spring Conference “Promoting Equity in Education through an Understanding of Diversity”

This year’s spring conference (June 3rd at Black Creek Pioneer Village) explores the issues of equity and diversity and will feature a keynote from Kathleen Gould Lundy from York University. Kathleen authored the book “Teaching Fairly in an Unfair World” and will kick the day off with her reflections on classroom considerations of equity and diversity and how students can be better supported.

Addressing equity and diversity in a one day conference is no small feat when you consider how many different topics and issues could be addressed. Although it is not possible to address every issue, this conference will consider 6 areas of diversity:

• diversity as aboriginal education
• ethnicity
• exceptionality
• gender
• linguistics
• socioeconomics

Essential Skills Series

The Essential Skills Series offered by CES (June 8, 9 and 10 in London Ontario) will be led by Dr. Paul Favaro and explores the foundations of evaluation and assessment.  The workshops conducted over these three days include:

• Understanding Program Evaluation
• Building an Evaluation Framework
• Improving Program Performance
• Evaluating for Results

Each of these workshops:

“The workshops are designed by the Canadian Evaluation Society to enhance program evaluation skills and promote the professional practice of evaluation across Canada. The workshops provide opportunities for group exercises and discussion. Participant workbooks are provided for each workshop. “

Both of these events are a great opportunity for the Education Researcher in Ontario to expand their skill sets, network with people from other regions and sectors and keep up with current practices and issues in Ontario.